Chapter 168: Chapter 168: Halt! It’s a Jinx
As it turned out, Finn Ford was indeed a man of both thought and action. He took an empty wooden crate from his backpack, placed the filthy little box inside, and said, "Pierce, you can store the crate in your backpack for now. Once we’re back, you can wash it clean before giving it to Yardley to open."
Faye Yardley: ...
’That’s not really necessary. Opening boxes does trigger my Talent, but...’
Zachary Pierce hummed in agreement. "You’re right. Just take it back, wash it clean, and give it to Yardley. Let’s keep moving inward."
"Mr. Alden, first, get some water so I can rinse my hands."
Faye Yardley stuck her torch into a crack in the nearby wall, then took out another one and followed Zachary Pierce. "Mr. Pierce, isn’t that a little unfair of you?"
"If you’re so fair, why didn’t you just open it yourself?"
"Haha, I’m a girl! It’s perfectly normal for me to find it gross."
"And now you’re playing the gender card."
As they spoke, the two had already advanced at least fifty meters. Faye Yardley suddenly grabbed Zachary Pierce’s clothes. "Wait, I think I hear a hissing sound up ahead."
Zachary Pierce stopped in his tracks to listen carefully. He could only hear it faintly, not clearly at all.
When the two behind them caught up and saw they had stopped, they also halted and assumed a defensive posture without asking any questions.
Zachary Pierce asked softly, "How about we try the path on the left?"
There was no rule that said they had to follow one path to the very end.
Faye Yardley blinked. "But I have a feeling there’s something good in there."
"No treasure is more important than our lives. We..."
BOOM! A section of the tunnel wall ahead was blasted open from the other side.
Light from the other side poured in, suddenly illuminating the world before them.
The four of them retreated a few steps, only to see a small part of the snake swarm on the other side start slithering toward them.
When it came to creatures like snakes, you would be hard-pressed to find even one person in a thousand who actually liked them.
In any case, the sight of the snakes made Faye Yardley’s body react with instinctive revulsion and fear.
So, any that slithered too quickly and reached her feet were immediately hacked into several pieces by a swing of her blade.
"Friends in the other tunnel! How about we team up to wipe out this swarm of snakes and split whatever we find fifty-fifty?" a rather familiar voice called from the other side.
Zachary Pierce wasted no words, hacking at the approaching snakes with his sword. "Is that Commander Langdon over there? Sounds good."
"Commander Pierce, so it is you! That’s wonderful." Logan Langdon was clearly familiar with Zachary Pierce’s voice as well.
Only Faye Yardley thought this was a stroke of bad luck.
’No wonder. The exploration was going so smoothly and relaxed before. The moment we run into this jinx, he drags us down with his bad luck, too.’
But there really was something good over there; she could feel it even more clearly now.
’Since they’d already agreed to an even split, and the snakes were attacking indiscriminately, they’d have to fight through a wave just to retreat anyway. What was the difference between that and helping out?’
Since they had agreed to join the fight, Faye Yardley didn’t hold back, tossing a bomb directly into the swarm of snakes.
A loud BOOM sent a shower of flesh and blood into the air.
What was unnerving was that the snakes weren’t just coming from the ground; they were also scuttling rapidly toward them from the ceiling and the walls.
After the explosion, Logan Langdon quickly shouted, "Don’t use bombs! There are too many of us here, you could hit a friendly!"
Zachary Pierce replied, "Alright, we won’t."
Faye Yardley snorted softly and thought, ’Tsk, honestly. Won’t even let me use something quick and labor-saving. Annoying people will find a way to be annoying. I knew there was a reason I couldn’t stand Logan Langdon.’
Zachary Pierce stood in front of Faye Yardley, cutting down four-fifths of the snakes that slipped through.
Faye Yardley was practically hopping around as she killed snakes. She truly hated these creatures; even having them die at her feet made her feel like her whole body was itching.
Their reinforcements arrived faster than expected.
Bo was the first to arrive. Following the torchlight, he quickly reached the battle. He didn’t just kill a stray snake at the rear; he even had the system break it down into meat and stored it away.
"Mr. Alden, there are so many snakes! Don’t let the Snake Meat go to waste. Let’s take this chance to collect what we can from the ones Pierce and Yardley are killing up front." Bo’s words immediately reminded Mr. Alden and Finn Ford. ’That’s right. We’ve basically just been tagging along at the back,’ they thought. ’It’d be great if we could use our spears to hook some snake pieces within reach, have the system break them down, and take them with us.’
"Bo, you’re back! Have the others arrived too?"
"They’ll be here any second."
Faye Yardley said softly to Zachary Pierce, "Mr. Pierce, I’m going to fall back to the left fork. As for the good stuff on the other side, don’t be too polite with Logan Langdon’s group."
"Alright. Be careful," Zachary Pierce replied, killing another snake as he spoke.
As she fell back, Faye Yardley grabbed the newly arrived Bo. "You’re coming with me to the other path. We’ll leave this side to Mr. Pierce and the others."
"Oh, okay, Yardley! Mr. Alden, you guys don’t forget the Snake Meat on the ground!"
As Faye Yardley and her group retreated, they ran into Caleb Colby leading his team toward them.
The reinforcements quickly split up. One team went to support Zachary Pierce and the others, while another followed Faye Yardley down the other, unexplored path.
The left path wasn’t much different from the right one. Furthermore, Faye Yardley could feel that as they continued inward, the passage seemed to be curving to the right.
This path, too, had secret rooms along its sides.
One was a clean, empty room containing only a skeleton. Faye Yardley went inside and took a bracelet from its wrist, as well as a small, triangular piece of black iron she found under its backside.
Seeing this, Caleb Colby couldn’t help but remark, "You really are something else, Yardley. You’d pluck a feather from a passing goose."
"Heh. Go on then, you can collect the skeleton."
Caleb Colby: ...
In another room, they found a rotten, broken wooden chest. Its contents had oxidized and become useless, but after rummaging through it, she found a rusty key that might still have some use.
Faye Yardley, of course, took it.
Then they found another secret room that, like one before, was filled with squeaking rats. Faye Yardley didn’t even have to lift a finger before the others swiftly exterminated them.
’This place is really something,’ she thought. ’Raising rats on one side, and snakes on the other side of a wall. The designer must have had a few screws loose, or maybe they just really liked eating both rat and snake meat.’
This time, however, the rat room contained no treasure chest, which was a real shame. On the other hand, she did find a Treasure Map Fragment in a hole in the wall.
’I wonder how many fragments it takes to form a complete Treasure Map.’
’Including this one, I have five of them now. Once the Invitation Card’s timer runs out, I’ll go back and try to combine them.’
Further in, they opened another secret room. Inside were more skeletons, but unlike the obviously human remains from before, these had the upper torso of a human and the lower body of a long snake skeleton.
"The Snakefolk?" Faye Yardley didn’t get any closer, while Caleb Colby and his teammates collected all three Snakefolk skeletons, large and small, into their backpacks.
"Yardley, I found this Token, but the system isn’t giving any information on it," one of the other team members said, walking over to Faye Yardley while holding an intricately patterned token.
Faye Yardley took the Token and weighed it in her hand. ’It’s surprisingly heavy.’ "Where did you find it?"
